Whether you are a professional blogger or you are new to the blogging world, there is a formula that you must follow to create the perfect blog post. If you do not include all of the elements below, you will find that your blog post is not as attention grabbing as you want it to be.
If you focus on the seven things below, you will be able to craft the best, perfect blog post in no time at all. Let’s go ahead and take a look at what those seven things are now.
1. Create a Catchy Headline for Your Post
You need to have a catchy headline for your blog post. If you have a boring headline, no one will make it into the meat of your post. In fact, they will close out of your post and move on to another post that grabs and holds their attention.
For example, how would you feel about a headline that said: “Three Things You Can Do with This Other Thing?” It would not grab your attention and you would likely not even move on to read about what those “things” are. Now, if you read a headline that said something to the effect of: “23 Women Died from This Common Food in Your Pantry,” you would click on this, you would read this, and you would want to learn more about what this “thing” is.
You may not be able to create catchy headlines in the beginning, but as you work on it, you will find yourself creating better, catchier headlines.
2. Your First Paragraph Needs to Have a Hook
While a catchy headline will make sure that people want to read the content, you need to keep these readers interested and you need to make sure that your readers want to learn more.
What we mean is that you need to have a hook. This hook is the first few sentences that lead into the article. The hook tells readers what the article will be about and it will allow the reader to decide if he or she wants to continue to read on to learn more about the topic.
In your hook, you should include relevant information, some statistics, or a fact that grabs the readers’ attention and makes them ponder the thought.
3. Add in Interesting Facts, Numbers, and Statistics
As we mentioned above, you can include statistics in your hook to lead in your readers. But, you do not only want to use statistics in this area, but also in other areas too. For example, if you are talking about DUI crashes, then you want to include numbers, facts, and statistics about it.
A blog post would be more interesting if you said: “37,000 of 50,000 accidents in 2015 were DUI related” as opposed to: “Lots of DUI accidents occur.”
To find statistics, numbers, and facts, you should look in authority sites where the content typically resides. For example, for the DUI statistics, you should look at the Department of Motor Vehicles or even local police reports to find that information you need.
4. Add Visual Content
If you create a text-only blog post, you will lose some of your readers. It has been proven that visual content adds more appeal to a blog post. As a matter of fact, readers are three times more likely to stay and read you blog post if you have visual content in it.
5. Videos
Video is one of the fast growing content types. Youtube is second most popular search engine.
If you are unsure of what type of video to add into the content, take some time to think about what your post is about.
For example, if we go back to the DUI crash statistic example, then you could find a video that shows DUI crashes or the results of a DUI crash. You could also show a video that includes interviews from people who have been in a DUI accident.
6. Reference Links Are Important Too
For all the information that you have presented in the blog, you need to produce appropriate references.
Have you ever heard of authority links? If not, you should learn about them quickly. Authority links are links to sites that are considered popular or sites that have some type of authority. For example, an authority site would be CNN.com. Another authority site would be WebMD.com or even FBI.gov. These are credible sources for information.
For you to have a perfect blog post, you need to include authority reference links in your post. This will help build your credibility and it will give your readers the opportunity to perform their own research.
7. Always Close Out the Article by Encouraging a Discussion or Comment
When you end your blog post, you always want to end with a call to action. This action can be anything, but is usually a discussion or comment. By encouraging your readers to discuss the topic or leave a comment, you are opening up a conversation with them and you will be able to respond to these comments as well.
The more you interact with your readers, the more likely they are to return to your website to continue the discussion or to read more information you post.
If you do not want to encourage a discussion or there is nothing to discuss in your blog post, make sure you use another type of call to action. For example, you can encourage your readers to fill out a quote form to receive a free quote or you can encourage your readers to call your company to schedule a service appointment.
As you work to create the perfect blog post, use the above seven elements and include them into your post. The harder you work to include all of these elements, the bigger payoff you will receive in the end.
